]]>The first significant snowfall to hit the Vancouver region in more than two years is causing widespread transit delays and has prompted several school closures, including the shutdown of a university campus.

Environment Canada issued a weather warning early Monday, predicting up to five centimetres of snow for much of the south coast as well as southeastern Vancouver Island. The Island warning was lifted later in the morning.

Matt MacDonald, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said the snow would let up by the afternoon but that a stronger storm was forecast to move in by mid-day on Thursday.

“I think this morning was a good reminder and test for what may be to come,” MacDonald said Monday.

“We’ll see the temperature drop to minus two tonight, and on Tuesday down to minus seven in Vancouver, so some of the coldest temperatures we’ve seen for a long time.”

Simon Fraser University announced it had cancelled classes at its Burnaby Mountain campus, citing hazardous driving conditions.

Metro Vancouver’s transit authority warned residents that most of its bus and SkyTrain routes were experiencing delays.

MacDonald said the previous two winters saw only a single instance of light snowfall in the Vancouver area. The most recent significant amount of snow to hit the Lower Mainland was in late February three winters ago, when the region saw 23 cm of the white stuff, he added.

Chilly temperatures are expected to stick around for the next few days, until a second bout of snow arrives later in the week, he said.

“Keep an eye on the forecast,” MacDonald advised. “Be prepared for difficult travel conditions and long commutes home come Thursday afternoon.”

The cooler-than-usual weather is predicted to last several more weeks, when a return to normal temperatures is expected in the new year.

A massive plume of smoke rises from a wildfire burning out of control near the highway to Fort McMurray, Alberta Friday, May 6, 2016.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

“It was a triple whammy,” says David Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment Canada. He’s referring to the weather that precipitated the huge forest fire at Fort McMurray, Alta. At Maclean’s request, Phillips crunched the city’s weather data, which started in 1944. He discovered a disturbing trend: winters are dramatically drier, and warmer than they were 50, even 70 years ago. The past few months, meanwhile, pulverized winter records. The worrisome climatic conditions in northern Alberta created the perfect environment for a massive conflagration. All it needed was a spark.

The first factor was precipitation, or the lack of it. The winter months from October to April were the driest on record, recording just 61 mm of melted snow and rain. The normal is more than double that, at 132 mm, while the previous record low for the same seven-month period occurred in 1946, when just 84 mm fell. “In a profession that measures new records in percentages of millimetres,” he says, “it smashed the previous one.” Alarmingly, the new record low is 27 per cent drier than the previous record.

The situation only got worse as the spring proceeded. Between April 15 and May 8, a period of 24 days, there was one millimetre of rain. The norm is 21 mm. Instead of seven or eight days of rain, there was just one.

The second factor was temperature. The seven months since October 2015 were the second-warmest on record, with an average temperature of -4.5° C. In contrast, the normal is -7.9° C. (The warmest on record was 2005-06 at –4.2° C). As if that wasn’t enough, Phillips also looked at the temperatures in the period from Jan. 1 to May 5 for every year, starting when records began in 1944. Before this year, the warmest day from Jan. 1 to May 5 in Fort McMurray was 30.6° C on May 2, 1980. That record tumbled last week, which recorded the two hottest days for that period. May 3, 2016 clocked in at 32.6° C (it also smashed the old May 3 record from 1945 of 27.8 degrees) while the next day, May 4, saw thermometers rise to 31.7° (which broke the previous May 4 record of a mere 27.6° in 1992.)

Then came the third factor: the “spring dip.” It’s the time between the disappearance of snow on the ground and when the trees gain their leaves. The spring dip is when the moisture content in trees is at its lowest. There was no snow since February, Phillips notes, letting the forest floor dry out all March and April.

The stage was set for a fire. Agencies in Alberta started their preparations earlier than usual. Everyone knew it was going to be a bad season. They just didn’t know where the first big one would strike, and when. It arrived on Sunday, May 1, just southwest of Fort McMurray.

A woman walks up Citadel Hill in Halifax on Monday, March 21, 2016. (Darren Calabrese, CP)

Freezing rain across southern Ontario caused power outages that continued into Friday and prompted weather warnings in parts of Quebec and the Atlantic provinces.

Tens of thousands hydro customers across southwest Ontario were still without power Friday afternoon as repair crews tried to stay ahead of outages due to freezing rain that coated wires and tree branches with ice.

PowerStream, which services communities north of Toronto, was working to restore power to some 12,000 residents and businesses.

Freezing rain warnings were issued for parts of Quebec and Atlantic Canada as the storm tracked east.

Environment Canada said significant ice build up and long-lasting periods of freezing rain are anticipated Friday in northern New Brunswick, with a mix of freezing rain, ice pellets and snow expected elsewhere in the province.

Northern Nova Scotia and P.E.I. can also expect freezing rain before the low-pressure system moves towards Newfoundland.

The national weather forecaster says parts of Newfoundland can expect a period of freezing rain of up to six hours before tapering off Saturday morning.

The icy weather meant an extra-long weekend for thousands of students across southern Ontario heading into Easter weekend.

Classes and buses were cancelled at three southern Ontario school boards Thursday, while many others across the province cancelled buses but left schools open.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/happy-spring-freezing-rain-causes-blackouts-in-ontario/feed/0Wind, ice cut electricity for thousands in Quebec and eastern Ontariohttp://www.macleans.ca/news/wind-ice-cut-electricity-for-thousands-in-quebec-and-eastern-ontario/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/wind-ice-cut-electricity-for-thousands-in-quebec-and-eastern-ontario/#respondThu, 25 Feb 2016 11:16:28 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=839393As many as 245,000 in Quebec and 16,000 in Ontario without power early Thursday morning

]]>MONTREAL – A mix of freezing rain, snow and strong winds have resulted in numerous power outages in southern Quebec and eastern Ontario.

Hydro-Quebec was reporting more than 245,000 customers were without electricity as of 4 a.m. Thursday while Hydro-One was showing almost 16,000 outages on its website.

Most blackouts were in southwest Quebec, including almost 73,000 in the Laurentian region north of Montreal; more than 67,000 northwest of the city; about 22,000 in communities south of Montreal and more than 27,000 in the city itself.

A Hydro-Quebec spokesman said teams of repair crews were working to restore electricity, but cautioned that some customers may be without power until Thursday morning, depending on weather conditions.

The spokesman said it was difficult to say when all power would be restored because of continuing strong winds late Wednesday and ice still falling on branches and wires in several regions.

Hydro-One, which services mainly rural Ontario, was reporting almost 16,000 customers without power – down from about 26,000 earlier Thursday – from central Ontario to the Quebec border. The utility said restoration times range from noon on Thursday to about 10 p.m.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/wind-ice-cut-electricity-for-thousands-in-quebec-and-eastern-ontario/feed/02015 was Earth’s hottest by a wide marginhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/2015-was-earths-hottest-by-a-wide-margin/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/2015-was-earths-hottest-by-a-wide-margin/#respondWed, 20 Jan 2016 17:45:26 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=824605The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and NASA says 2015 was by far hottest year in 136 years of record keeping

Sunbathers in Scheveningen, the Netherlands, on July 1, 2015. A blistering heatwave swept Europe on July 1. (Robin Van Lonkhuijsen/AFP/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Last year wasn’t just the Earth’s hottest year on record — it left a century of high temperature marks in the dust.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and NASA announced Wednesday that 2015 was by far the hottest year in 136 years of record keeping. For the most part, scientists at the agencies and elsewhere blamed man-made global warming, with a boost from El Nino.

NOAA said 2015’s temperature was 58.62 degrees Fahrenheit (14.79 degrees Celsius), passing 2014 by a record margin of 0.29 degrees. That’s 1.62 degrees above the 20th-century average. NASA, which measures differently, said 2015 was 0.23 degrees warmer than the record set in 2014 and 1.6 degrees above 20th century average.

Because of the wide margin over 2014, NASA calculated that 2015 was a record with 94 per cent certainty, more than double the certainty it had last year when announcing 2014 as a record. NOAA put the number at above 99 per cent _ or “virtually certain,” said Tom Karl, director of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.

For the first time Earth is 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than it was in pre-industrial times, NOAA and NASA said. That’s a key milestone because world leaders have set a threshold of trying to avoid warming of 1.5 or degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.

Because of the pace of rising temperatures, “we don’t have very far to go to reach 1.5,” Karl said.

But 1.5 or 2 degrees are not “magic numbers” and “we’re already seeing the impacts of global warming,” said NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies director Gavin Schmidt.

“This trend will continue; it will continue because we understand why it’s happening,” Schmidt said. “It’s happening because the dominant force is carbon dioxide” from burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.

Although 2015 is now the hottest on record, it was the fourth time in 11 years that Earth broke annual marks for high temperature.

“It’s getting to the point where breaking record is the norm,” Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe said. “It’s almost unusual when we’re not breaking a record.”

December 2015 was the 10th month last year that set a monthly warmth record, with only January and April not hitting high marks.

“That’s the first time we’ve seen that,” said NOAA’s Karl.

In December, the globe was 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal, beating the old record set in 2014 by more than a half a degree, NOAA calculated.

Earth has broken monthly heat records 34 times since 2000. The last time a global cold month record was set was December 1916 and the coldest year on record was 1911, according to NOAA.

An added factor this year is the strong El Nino, a warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide and adds to the globe’s heat. Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University said a strong El Nino can add about a third of a degree of warming to Earth’s temperature but that “sits upon the ramp of global warming.”

Karl and Schmidt both said 2015 would have been a record without El Nino. “But El Nino pushed it way over the top,” Karl said.

And it’s likely to happen this year, too. Schmidt, Karl and others said there’s a better than even chance that this year will pass 2015 as the hottest year on record, thanks to El Nino.

“2015 will be difficult to beat, but you say that almost every year and you get surprised,” said Victor Gensini, a meteorology professor at the College of DuPage outside of Chicago.

Measurements from Japan, Britain and the University of California at Berkeley also show 2015 is the warmest on record.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/2015-was-earths-hottest-by-a-wide-margin/feed/0Canada: A nation of winter wusseshttp://www.macleans.ca/society/life/canada-a-nation-of-winter-wusses/
http://www.macleans.ca/society/life/canada-a-nation-of-winter-wusses/#commentsFri, 01 Jan 2016 14:37:36 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=816021Canada used to pride itself on being the land of ice and snow. Now we avoid the outdoors—even when it’s not all that cold.

Despite an unseasonably warm winter and a forecast calling for a low of 7° C, Rhéal Leroux is ready for his annual trip to Florida. “Today is cold for me,” he says from his suburban Ottawa home. “It’s 28 in West Palm Beach.”

So on a late-November weekend—the same weekend on which he’s fled for the past 10 years—the 65-year-old was on a plane south, where he can play golf and walk outside without fear of slipping. Aside from a short visit home for a couple of days, Leroux won’t be back until April. There’s little that would make him stick it out in the cold Canadian winter. “You need two jackets to walk outside and you’ll still freeze,” he says. “Not being a skater or a skier, what can you do?”

In Canada, complaining about the cold is a national pastime. But what makes Leroux’s attitude noteworthy is that he’s the man who, back in 1978, came up with the idea for Winterlude, Ottawa’s annual outdoor festival that celebrates all things snowy and icy. As it turns out, even the self-described “father of Winterlude” hates the winter.

Canada’s mighty winters once invoked a sense of pride and superiority, a way to distinguish Canadians from Americans. “For we are a northern people, as the true out-crop of human nature, more manly, more real than the weak marrow-bones superstition of the effeminate south,” wrote the lawyer and essayist William Alexander Foster in his 1871 address, “Canada first or, our new nationality.”

For centuries, Canadians wouldn’t let a little cold stop them. Days after Christmas in 1794, the Hudson Bay Co.’s Peter Fidler—a British surveyor, though perhaps Canada’s first weatherman—ventured out to record at what temperature liquor froze. (For the record: Holland gin freezes solid at -27° C, English brandy at -32° C and rum at -35° C.)

Canadians continued to brave the elements for generations. Not even a power outage during the 1956 ice storm in P.E.I. could stop Tryon Consolidated School from educating its charges; it could still be kept warm with a wood stove. Cape Traverse local Joe MacDonald was so adamant about getting his two kids to class that he carried them, one child under each arm, as he skated to school.

Times have changed. Environment Canada issues twice as many types of winter warnings as it did 25 years ago. School cancellations are on the rise. Dressing warm—from temperature-rated parkas to lab-tested winter boots—has never been more in fashion, and yet major cities and university campuses continue to expand underground walkways so locals can avoid the cold, no matter the cost. P.E.I. native Meaghan Blanchard rose to local stardom last month with almost 200,000 YouTube hits for her song I’m Not Ready to Scrape Ice, a parody of the Dixie Chicks hit, Not Ready to Make Nice.

(Mika Goodfriend)

Winter aversion is practically endemic, despite the fact that virtually every Canadian city has not only warmed appreciably but also experienced less snow over the past few decades. Leroux is not exactly the only Canadian with a tee-off time. Snowbirds are flocking to Florida; 41 per cent of U.S. homes bought by Canadians last year were in the Sunshine State, according to the National Association of Realtors.

The rapid decline of the Canadian dollar has done little to dissuade Canucks from making the trip south, according to Jennifer Hendry, senior research associate with the Canadian Tourism Research Institute. When she analyzed StatsCan data regarding trip intentions for the winter, numbers were indeed down, “but not to the extent that we expected,” she says. Instead, people are modifying their vacations rather than cancelling them outright. Forget the fancy hotel; an accommodation with fewer stars won’t hurt. Who needs fine dining when there’s Applebee’s? Instead of a 10-day stay, a shortened six-day trip will do. “It’s almost a feeling of ‘as long as I can put food on the table, I’m going to travel this winter,’ ” Hendry says.

As for pride, Toronto lost much of that in 1999 when then-mayor Mel Lastman—founder of the Bad Boy furniture chain, no less—called in the Army to help shovel snow during a blizzard. The bar to get Canadians outdoors is now set so low that even the David Suzuki Foundation’s “Winter Family Challenge,” launched in January 2015, asked people to get outside as a family just once a week.

“We have hot summers and resplendent autumns,” wrote the late Governor General Literary Award-winning novelist Robertson Davies, “but it is winter that establishes the character of our country and our psychology.” If what Davies wrote is true, then Canada is—frankly—turning into a nation of winter wusses.

Simaga Lyta, an Iqaluit mother, is pushing back. She was upset last March when the school board decided to cancel school. After all, it was only supposed to get down to -50 with the wind chill. “If I’m going to teach my son, for example, to hunt, I don’t want him to think it’s too cold out, he can’t hunt,” she told local media. “And if he does go out hunting on a beautiful day and it does get cold, I want him to know how to survive.” Cancelling classes because of the cold, she argued, was harming Inuit culture, and it marked eight days of cancellations to that point in the school year due to weather.

While the mere thought of -50 would put a chill in most Canadians’ bones, some school boards and parents are struggling with snow days piling up. In Pictou County, N.S., for example, there was an annual average of 4.4 winter-storm-day cancellations between 1978 and 1988, according to a 2009 report. The following decade, that average jumped to 5.2 days. From 1998 to 2008, the annual average increased again to 6.9 days of classes missed due to winter weather.

“Over those years, the expectations of families have changed,” says James Gunn, the author of the report, who has previous experience as a principal and superintendent in the province. “Their tolerance of what makes a bad day is not what it used to be.”

Back in the day, road conditions had to be significantly worse before anyone even thought of cancelling school, Gunn adds. He remembers being a rural high school student in the early 1960s, helping put chains on the school bus and affixing it to a farmer’s tractor to help pull the bus up a snowy hill. “That would never happen now,” he says.

While bus cancellations don’t automatically mean school doors will be shuttered, many teachers aren’t keen to drive in on snowy days either. The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, for example, voted in 2014 to recommend that school boards cancel classes whenever bus service is cancelled.

In New Brunswick, some schools lost 13 days of classes last year because of the harsh winter. “Thirteen days cancelled, plus seven more professional development days, plus statutory holidays, plus one or two weeks in March,” tallies Paul Bennett, director of the Halifax-based education policy analysis firm Schoolhouse Consulting. “Who can work when your kids are out of school [this much]?”

Cancelling school not only puts extra pressure on families with two working parents, but it also writes off certain lesson plans for students or forces teachers to cram more into a limited time frame.

But if the medium is the message, school boards are woefully underprepared to get work to students on snow days. “The school boards here have become very effective at communicating electronically that school is cancelled,” says Bennett. “But they can’t seem to organize e-learning during those days kids are not in school.”

Bennett suggests schools prepare “blizzard bags”—filled with various homework for students with or without access to a computer at home—for days when poor weather forces school closures. It’s a practice already in place at many schools across Ohio, New Hampshire and Massachusetts and could prove a vacation-saver up north. When Nova Scotia’s education minister floated the idea of students coming in during March break to make up class time, parents complained it would ruin family trips. The premier stepped in to assure parents the government wouldn’t enforce such an option, and asked school boards to sort it out.

A snowboarder makes his way down a run at Cypress Mountain in West Vancouver, B.C. Monday, Feb. 9, 2015. (Jonathan Hayward/CP)

David Phillips figured he had a “good news” story on his hands about 10 years ago when he crunched the numbers and found out Canada was no longer the coldest country in the world. The fall in the rankings had nothing to do with global warning, but rather the breakup of the Soviet Union, which changed some boundaries and pushed the Russian Federation to top spot. The senior climatologist with Environment Canada issued a press release, but he was surprised by how Canadians reacted. “It was looked upon as sad news,” Phillips says. “We think we’re the land of ice and snow.”

But data shows that’s becoming less the case. Since 1948, winter has warmed by three degrees nationally, an increase greater than any other season. In the 40 years between 1960-99, Montreal averaged more than 15 days a year with temperatures dipping to -20° C or colder. Since the turn of the century, the city has barely registered 10 of those days on average each year.

Comparing two overlapping sets of 30-year temperature normals (1961-90 and 1981-2010) from Canada’s National Climate Data and Information Archive for the winter months of every provincial and territorial capital, only Iqaluit has gotten colder. Whitehorse and Yellowknife winters are nearly 2.5° C warmer than they once were, while winter days in Regina, Edmonton and Winnipeg are on average about 1.5° C warmer. “These changes appear to be very small, but they’re not,” says Adam Fenech, director of the Climate Lab at the University of Prince Edward Island, who examined the data. “It’s a slow-moving window.”

Snowfall has also decreased across the majority of Canadian cities, most notably in Vancouver, where snowfall normals fell by 31 per cent from the 1961-90 average to the 1981-2010 average. There may be the occasional bad year of snowstorms, but the 30-year window of study limits the effect of those anomalies. Locals in Fredericton, Halifax, Charlottetown and Toronto might not believe it, but snowfall has dropped in each of those cities, too, by about 15 per cent.

Winnipeg, meanwhile, may be so cold that when NASA named a small part of Mars after the city, it was considered an emblem of pride. But if a tough winter day in the Prairies constitutes, say, at least five centimetres of snowfall and a minimum temperature at or below -20° C, “Winterpeg” averaged 2.7 tough winter days annually in the 1950s, but saw only 1.3 per year since the turn of the century. Regina, too, fell from having an annual average of 1.6 tough winter days during the 1950s to 0.6 since 2000. So when parents, or grandparents, say Canadian winters aren’t half as bad they used to be, they’re correct.

If anything is getting worse, it’s the made-up terms to describe the impending doom of the season: “snowmaggedon” or “snowpocalypse” are two that come to mind. (Kansas City wins the award for most creative with “the Blizzard of Oz.”) “We rush to the thesaurus or invent Hollywood-like names and apply them to weather terminology,” says Phillips. “But they have traction. People remember them and use them—and it sometimes scares the bejesus out of people.”

Environment Canada too has more types of winter warnings than ever before—a byproduct of improved weather reporting accuracy and Canada’s insatiable desire for weather news. In 1949, for example, winter warnings issued by Environment Canada included blizzard, frost, heavy snowfall, freezing rain and wind. Not even extreme cold warranted a notice. Today, there are more than twice as many types of winter warnings: Arctic outflow, blowing snow, extreme cold (including wind chill), flash freeze, freezing drizzle, snowfall, snow squall, and winter storm. “We’ve invented more weather, when there is no new weather,” Phillips says. “We just have more terminology and descriptors.”

There are few winter terms more influential, however, than “wind chill”—which as it happens was invented by an American—as 82 per cent of Canadians make decisions based on wind chill, according to a recent study. “Most meteorologists hate wind chill because it’s not a perfect measure of coldness, but Canadians love it because it really exaggerates the worst,” Phillips says. Which means if it’s -25° C outside, but minus -35 with wind chill, “by the end of the day, people are saying it’s -35 outside.” Anything to make it sound more spectacularly cold than it really is.

Brag as we might about the cold, the local economy suffers when people cancel restaurant reservations or forgo a day of shopping because the wind chill drops too low. Retailers, tourist operators and restaurants suffered in 2014 when consumers “preferred to hibernate instead of venturing out,” wrote Scotiabank’s deputy chief economist Aron Gampel. TD, meanwhile, blamed oil prices and the cold weather for the GDP dropping 0.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2015.

If Canadians ventured outside more, they’d find out it often doesn’t feel as cold as the weatherman claims. “One of the unknowns about meteorology is we measure temperature in the shade, not the sun,” Phillips says. So if the wind isn’t blowing and you want outdoors to feel seven or eight degrees warmer than what you heard on the radio, Phillips has one piece of advice: “Walk on the sunny side of the street.”

MAXIM ZMEYEV/Reuters

Prior to the 2014 Sochi Olympics, the Canadian Olympic Committee launched a massive marketing campaign with the tag line: “We are winter.” While Canada can trumpet our double gold medals in hockey, off the ice Russians don’t fear winter like Canadians do. Withstanding the cold is part of their history; Russians fought off invasions from Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler, whose troops both succumbed to Russian winters. Every Jan. 19, thousands of Russians dive into icy waters as part of an Orthodox Church tradition to symbolically wash off their sins. Some go swimming in the winter waters every day as part of “walrus clubs.”

Norwegians, too, look forward to winter. “It’s easy to love the winter in northern Norway,” says Kari Leibowitz, a Ph.D. student at Stanford University who spent a year at the University of Tromsø, the world’s northernmost university, to study winter attitudes. It’s quite a statement coming from Leibowitz, a New Jersey native who hated winter so much growing up that she moved to the southern U.S. after high school.

When Leibowitz opted to go to Tromsø—a city as far north as Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T.—“I originally went there to study why people weren’t more depressed,” she says. When she arrived in August 2014, she began asking locals about the cold months ahead, when the sun barely rises for two months. Norwegians responded by saying it was either a) not a big deal, or b) they looked forward to the winter. The town of 70,000 has a cross-country ski track around the island, fully lit, so everyone can ski with ease. People eat outside at restaurants, with blankets and under heat lamps. New mothers are out with their strollers pushing newborns who are wrapped as if they’re in a cocoon.

Getting a daily dose of outdoor sun in the wintertime—even if it’s just a half-hour’s worth—could be helpful with regulating hormones that affect our mood, such as melatonin, says Kate Harkness, a professor of psychology at Queen’s University. “People who get into their underground parking lot, drive to another underground parking lot, and spend the whole day inside are not getting the critical sunlight they need.”

According to a 2015 survey commissioned by the Weather Network, 43 per cent of Canadians experience “winter blues”—a mild form of seasonal affective disorder—while the Canadian Mental Health Association says that percentage is closer to 15 per cent. “The more you talk about it being miserable in the winter, the less likely you are to go outside,” Harkness says. This, in turn, will negatively affect mood. “It becomes a self-fulﬁlling prophecy.” One way to help change that is to go outside for a little walk—even if it’s cloudy.

Jackets hang at the factory of Canada Goose Inc. in Toronto on Thursday, November 28, 2013. Canada Goose plans to double staff at a new factory in Winnipeg by early next year as it lays the groundwork for a bigger international expansion. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Aaron Vincent Elkaim

Complain as we might, Canadians have never been better equipped to deal with the cold, from Sorel boots that can handle temperatures of -40° C to winter footwear from Pajar with cleats built into the sole for a better grip. Footwear is now a science: WinterLab in Toronto recreates harsh winter conditions—from icy surfaces to 30 km/h winds—to test different treads.

Even winter apparel is having its fashion moment. Total outerwear sales across Canada jumped by 11 per cent to $3.2 billion in the 12 months leading up to September 2015, according to market research firm NPD Group. The previous 12-month cycle had growth of five per cent. “It’s cool to have technical hardware on your fashion outerwear for everyday use,” says NPD’s fashion industry analyst Sandy Silva. “You’ll never use the true utility the purchase was intended for an everyday occasion.” Ravean, a Utah-based startup, just launched a line of fashionable battery-heated jackets with gloves that can be heated, too, by plugging them into the coat.

But the company that comes top of mind each winter is Canada Goose, whose parkas are advertised as being “field tested in the coldest places on Earth.” Its domestic sales increased in 2015 by more than 25 per cent over 2014, according to figures shared by the private company, with British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec its biggest growth markets. The jackets are so in style that Sports Illustrated featured supermodel Kate Upton on the cover of its swimsuit issue wearing only a Canada Goose parka and bikini bottoms. The coyote-fur-trimmed hoods have, on their own, almost made wearing fur acceptable again. From an annual revenue of $5 million in 2001, the company forecasts global revenues will top $300 million this year—which might explain the opening of a second factory in Winnipeg.

Back in Tromsø, there’s always something to look forward to in winter. When the local Christmas markets shut down, the town prepares to host an international film festival in January. “It’s the coldest, darkest part of the year and yet they’re inviting people from all over the world to come to their film festival,” Leibowitz says.

As for her research, Leibowitz helped develop a wintertime mindset scale that surveyed people’s agreement or disagreement with statements like: “There are many things to enjoy about the winter,” or, “In the winter, I feel like doing nothing.” “We found that having a positive wintertime mindset was correlated with life satisfaction, personal growth and positive emotions,” she says. “All seasons have positive and negative aspects, but we tend to focus on the positive things about summer and the negative things about winter.”

She isn’t suggesting that those with clinically diagnosed seasonal depression can simply snap out of it by changing their mindsets. But for many cold-weather haters, reframing the idea of winter can be beneficial. She’s seen it first-hand, like when she hunkered inside at 10 p.m. during Tromsø’s worst snowstorm of the year. “I looked outside and saw someone on my street,” she laughs, “just going for a jog.”

A woman makes her way through a spring snowstorm in Edmonton on Wednesday, May 6, 2015. (Nathan Denette/CP)

The myth about Edmonton winters is that it’s six months of -40° C. Untrue as it is, that’s the way the city is built. “We’ve written off the outdoors of Edmonton in the wintertime,” says city councillor Ben Henderson. “There was a movement in the ’70s and ’80s that if we moved everything indoors, we could somehow make the winter go away.” Emblematic of the movement was the 5.3-million-sq.-foot West Edmonton Mall, which first opened in 1981. It now has more than 800 stores and 200-plus restaurants in addition to its waterpark, skating rink and a IMAX 3D movie theatre—everything a family needs for a day of entertainment, without the cold.

What happened to the City of Champions, where more than 57,000 fans once braved -20° C weather (colder with the wind chill) for the 2003 NHL Heritage Classic? Many of them are underground in the city’s 13-km indoor pedway system, which is primed for a major expansion. (Toronto boasts it has the Guinness World Record for the largest underground shopping complex, spanning 30 km, which connects subways and downtown offices.) “There are these gorgeous winter days people are convinced didn’t happen,” Henderson says. “We had no capacity to take advantage of them.” Which is why Henderson is on a mission to help people appreciate the joys of winter.

Edmonton is entering its third year of a “Winter City Strategy” to get locals outside in the colder months, including supporting a four-season patio culture. The area surrounding the Edmonton Oilers hockey arena is now known as the “Ice District,” a rebranding to make the city proud of its cold. The 40 Below Project, an Alberta-based initiative that releases anthologies of poems, short stories and artwork that promote the joys of winter, recently released a second volume.

“Look back 30 or 40 years. There was a lot of stuff happening, and some of people’s fondest memories were in the wintertime,” Henderson says. “Mukluk Mardi Gras is one that every child who grew up in Edmonton remembers vividly.” The beloved winter carnival, which took place throughout the ’60s, included a snow parade down Jasper Avenue, dogsled races and cross-country toboggan races. “Ironically,” Henderson adds, “it fell prey to the fact that the weather was too warm.”

So while a 2007 survey from Statistics Canada found 27 per cent of new Canadians named Canada’s climate as what they disliked most about their new country, perhaps that’s partly attributed to a perceived lack of things to do. “Some of the people who jumped on the bandwagon early were our newest immigrants,” Henderson says of Edmonton’s Winter City initiatives. “They were fascinated by winter and wanted to be more engaged to find ways to enjoy it.”

With an original budget of $200,000, Rhéal Leroux had enough to entice tens of thousands of locals and tourists to the inaugural Ottawa Winterlude in 1979. There were professional ice sculptures, an outdoor winter playground for kids, not to mention thousands skating on the Rideau Canal. A group of young skaters were on hand to race a horse ridden by hockey legend Bobby Hull. Prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau attended with his kids; his seven-year-old son, Justin, got to pet the horses.

Leroux says he’s proud of all that the festival has accomplished for the city, including watching the success of BeaverTails, which went from selling pastries at a kiosk in Ottawa in 1978 to becoming a national emblem, as Leroux puts it. But if he has one regret, it’s that Winterlude started to put some of its attractions indoors, such as musical programs and beer festivals. “That was not the basic philosophy at the beginning,” he says. “If we create an event to promote winter, let’s promote winter.”

A snow plow clears a street in the town of Hudson, west of Montreal, Tuesday, December 29, 2015 during the first major storm of winter. (Graham Hughes, The Canadian Press)

TORONTO — A powerful storm system which dealt southern Ontario its first real blast of winter this season moved into southern Quebec on Tuesday, with meteorologists expecting it to hit Atlantic Canada later in the day.

The system moved into Canada from the U.S., where it had spawned deadly tornadoes in Texas over the weekend, and brought heavy snow, ice and blustery winds Monday to several other states, causing the cancellation of more than 2,800 flights nationwide.

“This particular messy mix of precipitation, the snow, ice pellets, freezing rain, rain, really is the first taste of winter for a lot of southern Ontario,” said Geoff Coulson, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada. “This is a large scale system.”

Snow gave way to rain in many areas, including the Toronto region, by Tuesday morning.

The conditions made for a slow commute as motorists dealt with slick roads and slushy sidewalks. Ontario Provincial Police said they had responded to more than 300 collisions since the storm began.

While southwestern Ontario was expected to see periods of rain for the rest of the day, freezing rain warning remained in effect for areas north and northeast of Toronto.

Meanwhile, in eastern and central Ontario, including the Ottawa valley, North Bay and the Sudbury areas, colder temperatures meant heavy snow was in the forecast, said Coulson.

The storm system was also making its way into southern Quebec, where a number of winter storm warnings were in effect.

Montreal was expected to see between 15 and 40 centimetres of snow by Tuesday evening, while the Greater Montreal area, the Laurentians and the Eastern Townships were expected to get 30 to 40 centimetres of snow.

“They anticipate this to be mostly a snowfall event, where some areas of southern Quebec could see between 30 to 40 centimetres before the system finally weakens off and pulls out overnight,” said Coulson. “A similar situation in the Maritimes, this system will also affect them during the course of the day.”

Snowfall warnings were in effect for southern parts of Nova Scotia and southern parts of New Brunswick, some of which had already been hit by up to 18 centimetres of snow on Sunday.

A snowfall warning was in effect for Halifax, while a winter storm watch was in place for Fredericton.

The storm system has lead to numerous flight cancellations and delays.

Up to 20 centimetres is expected, with the snow becoming mixed at times with ice pellets.

Both Air Canada and WestJet are advising that the weather could affect flights to and from east coast destinations, and travellers should check the status of their flights before heading to the airport.

]]>WASHINGTON — Even in a record-breaking hot year for Earth, October stood out as absurdly warm.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that last month globally was 58.86 degrees (14.98 degrees Celsius). That’s the hottest October on record by a third of a degree over the old mark, “an incredible amount” for weather records, said NOAA climate scientist Jessica Blunden.

October’s temperature was the most above-normal month in history. It was 1.76 degrees Fahrenheit (0.98 degrees Celsius) above the 20th-century average.

“A complete blowout,” said Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute. “This year is going to be an all-time record-breaker.”

This was the eighth month this year when a heat record was set, with only January and April not setting records. That’s a record number of broken records in any year. Records go back to 1880.

Blunden and other scientists blame a potent and strengthening El Nino on top of accelerating man-made global warming.

“This is just a new normal,” Blunden said. “I don’t know what really else to call it.”

Nearly every team that measures temperatures found that October 2015 was a record, including NASA, the Japanese Meteorological Agency, University of California at Berkeley and University of Alabama at Huntsville, which measures the upper air using satellites, Blunden said.

Record heat was found in Australia, southern Asia, parts of western North America, much of central and southern Africa, most of Central America and northern South America, according to NOAA.

It’s also the hottest January through October for Earth on record, along with the hottest consecutive 12 months on record.

Given that the El Nino continues to strengthen and how much warmer 2015 is than previous years, Blunden said “it is virtually just impossible that we will not break the record” for the hottest year. That record was set in 2014. Since the year 2000, global monthly heat records have been broken 32 times, yet the last time a monthly cold record was set was in 1916.

It’s a bit odd learning that a hurricane bears one’s first name. Yesterday, when I saw the first announcements that hurricane Patricia was brewing off the west coast of Mexico, I joked that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had acknowledged my power and might. That tongue-in-cheek attitude vanished upon reading more about this behemoth.

It is a monster: a Category 5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 325 kh/h (and higher gusts). NOAA’s National Hurricane Center calls it “the strongest eastern north Pacific hurricane on record.” That has been strengthened to the strongest ever in the Western Hemisphere. The most recent comparable storm is typhoon Haiyan, which destroyed swathes of the Philippines in 2013, killing some 6,300.

The U.S. agency warns that Patricia is heading for “potentially catastrophic landfall in southwestern Mexico later today.” The pressure at its centre is the lowest recorded of any such storm in three decades. That means it will land hard. In addition to the dangerous winds, Patricia is expected to bring intense flooding and storm surge.

Right now, the state of Jalisco appears to be where it will touch land, with the tourist resort of Puerto Vallarta as its main target. The hurricane is expected to hit on Friday afternoon or evening. The airport closed on Friday morning, beachfront hotels are evacuating tourists, and Mexican officials are urging everyone to get to prepared shelters. It could be the worst storm to hit the nation in half a century, according to Mexico’s president. (An estimated 2,000 Canadians are in the areas affected, CBC reports. Foreign Affairs urges them to contact the embassy if they require help.)

UPDATE: As of 4 p.m. EDT on Friday, NOAA forecast that it would hit land within hours and then rapidly move inland:

At 100 PM CDT (1800 UTC), the center of Hurricane Patricia was
located near latitude 18.2 North, longitude 105.3 West. Patricia is
now moving toward the north near 12 mph (19 km/h). A turn toward
the north-northeast and a faster forward motion are expected this
afternoon, with this motion continuing tonight and Saturday. On
the forecast track, the center of Patricia should cross the coast in
the hurricane warning area during the next several hours. After
landfall, the center of Patricia is expected to move quickly
north-northeastward across western and northern Mexico.

Mexico often has to contend with tropical storms developing in the warm waters off both its western and eastern coasts. Because of the presence of El Niño, the NOAA forecast an “above-normal” storm season in the east Pacific. As it explained, “El Niño decreases the vertical wind shear over the eastern tropical Pacific, which favours more and stronger tropical storms and hurricanes. El Niño is already affecting the wind and rainfall patterns across the equatorial and subtropical Pacific Ocean.” It predicted seven to 12 hurricanes with up to eight major storms. Patricia is the 13th such hurricane of the season.

What makes this storm so alarming is the explosive speed at which it gained strength. On Thursday morning, it was a typical tropical storm that might strengthen into a Category 1 hurricane. Around 12 hours later, it was turning into a Category 5. “This is really, really, really strong,” World Meteorological Organization spokeswoman Clare Nullis said. The hurricane’s winds are strong enough “to get a plane in the air and keep it flying.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/society/science/potentially-catastrophic-hurricane-patricia-bears-down-on-mexico/feed/1The next big revolution in science? It’s in weather forecasting.http://www.macleans.ca/society/science/the-next-big-revolution-in-science-its-in-weather-forecasting/
http://www.macleans.ca/society/science/the-next-big-revolution-in-science-its-in-weather-forecasting/#commentsMon, 20 Jul 2015 17:13:50 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=737367Space travel and Internet innovation get all the science buzz. But new advances in weather tracking will truly affect us all

If you can’t think of anything to say, talk about the weather. It’s never been better advice than right now. Today it is possible to talk about nothing but the weather, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

We live in an era of apparently limitless weather information. Where a farmers’ almanac once delivered forecasts on a quarterly basis (expect a cold, dry winter), now there are monthly, weekly, daily and hourly projections about Mother Nature’s plans. Generally, this bounty of weather data proves itself useful and accurate. But even when it doesn’t, we still can’t seem to get enough.

Besides rainfall and sunshine predictions, the Weather Network—which claims more than 20 million monthly viewers in Canada—provides specific forecasts for air quality, pollen, UV, golfing, boating, fishing, skiing and gardening. There’s even a separate bug report with helpful green, yellow and red icons meant to predict insect activity levels. (Sorry, Winnipeg: It’s red bugs for the rest of the week.)

This unceasing demand for weather-related info has spurred wry predictions of what the future might hold. As Montreal humourist Josh Freed pointed out recently, we ought to prepare for a “second-by-second radar report that says things like ‘rain commencing at your location in 33 seconds.’ ” Or possibly a dog-walking app that tells you when to head for home. (“Walk, walk, walk, walk . . . slow, slower . . . Turn around . . . Thunderstorm starts in 47 seconds. Run!!”)

Of course, the great risk of satire is that real life often catches up sooner than you’d expect. In fact, we’re now on the verge of a massive explosion in satellite weather data that will further revolutionize time spent checking what it’s doing outside. That dog-walking app might not be so far-fetched after all.

This week, the next generation in weather prediction was unveiled with the operational debut of Japan’s Himawari 8 geostationary meteorological satellite. It will be followed in the next two years by a pair of American weather satellites with similar capabilities. These new additions to Earth’s orbit can take much sharper and faster pictures of changing weather conditions, allowing for smooth movie-like feeds instead of those jumpy images of spinning cyclones we now suffer through. (Himawari 8 can map all of Japan in 2.5 minutes, compared to the half-hour required by its predecessor.) They will also be the first weather satellites to transmit in full colour. The difference for weather fans will be like going from Buster Keaton to Avengers: Age of Ultron in a flash.

Beyond providing more attractive weather footage, these next-generation weather satellites can track 16 different types of information; existing satellites cover only five bands of data. This means more accurate predictions for hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons, better monitoring of actual and potential forest fires, more detailed tracking of global pollution, fog, dust, lightning and volcanoes, as well as greater precision for all those routine weather tasks, such as figuring out if it’s going to rain on your kid’s baseball tournament.

The new satellites mark a turning point in weather knowledge that will provide a surprisingly broad array of benefits, from better GPS signals for drivers to crucial new information for farmers and boaters. During the test phase of the American satellite system, it was possible to alert Chicago’s O’Hare airport of an approaching fog patch, something that is currently very difficult to predict. This allowed the airport to avoid last-minute diversions and cancellations. The fuel savings generated by this one incident were estimated at US$600,000; future annual savings for the American airline industry could total US$170 million. Of course, the value of preventing a single catastrophic air crash due to volcanic ash or other environmental turbulence would be inestimable.

Because Canada overlaps much of the American satellites’ planned range, most of us also stand to benefit from this looming weather-info revolution. Unfortunately, the northern half of most provinces, and the entire Arctic region, are out of range of their fixed orbits. The Canadian Space Agency’s Polar Communications and Weather Mission is meant to patch this gap by launching a similarly advanced satellite focused on the top of the world, although this project is many years from fruition.

While the Internet and deep-space exploration get all the 21st-century scientific glory, we should properly acknowledge how far we’ve come in predicting the weather—and how much we’ve come to rely upon it. Weather forecasts were once the stuff of achy knees and barometer readings. Today, they’re technological marvels that offer many real, if often overlooked, benefits for society at large, as well as in our own personal lives, from making weekend plans to keeping us safer when we travel.

“Some are weather-wise,” Benjamin Franklin once wrote in his Poor Richard’s Almanack, “some are otherwise.” Soon we will all be much weather-wiser than before.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/society/science/the-next-big-revolution-in-science-its-in-weather-forecasting/feed/1February was the coldest month on record for Quebec, parts of Ontariohttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/february-was-the-coldest-month-on-record-for-quebec-parts-of-ontario/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/february-was-the-coldest-month-on-record-for-quebec-parts-of-ontario/#respondSun, 01 Mar 2015 22:16:54 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=686607Temperatures across Quebec and southern Ontario were seven to nine degrees colder than the historic averages

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/groundhog-day-rodents-set-to-predict-winters-fate/feed/0White Christmas doubtful for many in urban Canadahttp://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/white-christmas-doubtful-for-many-in-urban-canada/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/white-christmas-doubtful-for-many-in-urban-canada/#commentsMon, 22 Dec 2014 10:32:28 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=656033 Much of southern Ontario is due to see a green or a "brown Christmas'' instead as snow melts, while B.C.'s Lower Mainland will also be seeing green

]]>TORONTO – The Weather Network says Canadians’ dreams of a white Christmas likely won’t come true for many of those living in the more populated parts of the country.

Chief meteorologist Chris Scott says there should generally be snow on the ground in many areas from the Prairies to the Maritimes as presents are unwrapped Thursday morning.

But he says those in southern Ontario, the Vancouver area, as well as parts of Quebec and the Maritimes will be on the “fringe of the snowpack” and can expect conditions that aren’t fit for tobogganing.

Scott says much of southern Ontario is due to see a green or a “brown Christmas” instead as snow melts under the rain and wind of a storm system moving from the U.S., while B.C.’s Lower Mainland will also be seeing green.

He says there should be fresh snow on B.C. ski hills and in the province’s interior, along with parts of the prairies including Calgary, southern Saskatchewan and Winnipeg and also northwestern Ontario.

Scott says the mild conditions much of the country has seen in recent weeks will change as the run-up to New Year’s Eve brings cold and wintry conditions east of the Rocky Mountains.

“When you look at the country as a whole geographically the vast majority – 90, 95 per cent – is covered in snow and will be Christmas morning. But when you look at the population it’s a different story,” he said in an interview Sunday.

The timing of the storm system will determine conditions in central and eastern Canada, Scott said.

“We’re considering right now that there’s a reasonable chance that there’s enough snow on the ground Christmas morning to call it a white Christmas, but it will feel unlike a typical white Christmas in that we’ll be seeing a lot of rain falling Christmas Eve and through the night.”

Scott said those looking to dash outside to try out Christmas presents like toboggans are likely to be disappointed. “It’s not going to be very fun even if there is snow on the ground.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/video-heavy-thunderstorms-flood-toronto/feed/0Arthur drenches the Maritimeshttp://www.macleans.ca/news/need-to-know/arthur-to-make-landfall-in-nova-scotia/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/need-to-know/arthur-to-make-landfall-in-nova-scotia/#respondFri, 04 Jul 2014 20:44:22 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=577601The storm has delayed flights and left thousands without power as wind and heavy rain hit the east coast

With more than 130 millimetres of precipitation already fallen in some areas of New Brunswick, forecasters predicted more localized flooding as they called for more heavy rain late Saturday.

Environment Canada said the weather system would remain potent as it moved across the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence overnight.

Canadian Hurricane Centre officials said large offshore waves of up to nine metres would contribute to heavy, pounding surf along the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, as well as probable rip currents.

Chris Fogarty of the Canadian Hurricane Centre said the storm slowed over Fredericton and Saint John on Saturday at its peak intensity level.

Arthur was downgraded from a hurricane to a post-tropical storm Saturday morning by the time it reached the Maritimes, but it still packed a punch, causing widespread power outages in parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Fogarty predicted the rain would surpass the 150-millimetre mark in Saint Stephen, N.B., on the U.S. border.

Mike Gange lives in Fredericton, one of the hardest-hit areas. He described hearing the buffeting winds tear down a maple tree in his front yard, damaging roof tiles and a rain gutter as it fell.

“(There was) a great big crack and then the whole front of the house got real dark because this 40-year-old tree split in half,” said Gange.

Gange’s home was not the only one in the New Brunswick capital that was damaged due to the storm.

“I drove around today and we must have seen 25 houses with big, big trees down — there were a couple of spaces where the trees are down so much that you can’t go up and down the (road),” he said. “In one place you couldn’t get through there if you had an army tank.”

Gange said he has not seen weather this severe in his 41 years in Fredericton.

“It’s like a Tasmanian devil ripping through your backyard,” he said. “It’s crazy here … at times it rains so hard you can’t see 10 feet in front of you.”

The hurricane centre said the storm would end in the Maritimes overnight then track through the Gulf of St. Lawrence toward Newfoundland on Sunday.

Some consider the first-named storm of the hurricane season to be an early arrival in Atlantic Canada, but Fogarty didn’t see that as a sign of things to come this year.

“We don’t need to read anything into this storm arriving early that it will be a bad season,” said Fogarty. “This could very well be the only storm we have this season, or there could be two more. We can’t predict that far ahead.”

Mid-afternoon Saturday, Nova Scotia Power said about 135,000 of its customers were without power.

Megan Fisher lives in Halifax’s north-end and considered herself lucky after heeding advice to move her car from underneath a swaying tree.

“About two minutes after we got back from moving the car to a parking lot … it fell right where my car was parked,” said Fisher. “It would have crushed it.”

Fisher described seeing the nine-metre tree lying across her driveway.

“It was just crazy,” she added. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

New Brunswick’s main electrical utility reported more than 115,000 outages by mid-afternoon. It warned some residents they could be without power for up to 48 hours because of widespread damage caused by the storm.

NB Power said the largest number of outages was in Fredericton where winds of more than 100 km/h had knocked down a number of large trees, leaving streets littered with debris.

Long lineups at gas stations and fast food restaurants led to traffic jams across the city.

City officials opened a reception and charging station at the Fredericton Convention Centre in response to the widespread power outages.

Police in Saint John said some local roads were closed because they were covered by flood water.

The storm caused flight cancellations and delays at the region’s largest airport in Halifax. Other events scheduled for the weekend, including music festivals, were delayed or cancelled.

The RCMP in Prince Edward Island said a number of electrical poles had been knocked down by the storm and roads were blocked by downed trees.

Large offshore waves of up to nine metres were reported early Saturday morning off the southern coast of Nova Scotia. Closer to shore, the hurricane centre said waves of between three and five metres were recorded.

Before Arthur’s arrival in Canada, it swiped the east coast of the United States on Friday but proved far less damaging than officials feared.

It left tens of thousands of people without power as it swiped at North Carolina’s Outer Banks, then brought lousy Fourth of July beach weather to parts of the northeastern U.S. as it veered out to sea towards Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Arthur struck North Carolina as a Category 2 storm with winds of 160 km/h late Thursday, taking about five hours to move across the far eastern part of the state. At the height of the storm, more than 40,000 people lost power in the U.S.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/tropical-storm-arthur-could-become-hurricane/feed/0Cancellations and closures ahead of storm in Atlantic Canadahttp://www.macleans.ca/news/cancellations-and-closures-ahead-of-storm-in-atlantic-canada/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/cancellations-and-closures-ahead-of-storm-in-atlantic-canada/#respondWed, 26 Mar 2014 15:45:16 +0000http://www.macleans.ca/?p=530059Up to 40 to 50 centimetres of snow are predicted for parts of Nova Scotia and P.E.I.

]]>HALIFAX – Schools and government offices were closed and flights cancelled Wednesday in parts of Atlantic Canada as a powerful spring blizzard began its push through the region.

Significant snow was forecast for all four provinces, but Nova Scotia and P.E.I. were expected to see the biggest accumulation with up to 40 to 50 centimetres predicted for some parts of the two provinces.

Power outages caused by high winds and snow that affected just over 2,800 Nova Scotia Power customers were reported late Wednesday morning in the Shelburne and Liverpool areas of the province.

While New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador were expected to get less snow the entire region has been warned about potentially damaging winds in excess of 100 kilometres per hour that could cause widespread whiteout conditions.

In western Newfoundland, where strong winds are common, Environment Canada says gusts could peak at 160 km/h and even higher in the notorious Wreckhouse area.

In Nova Scotia, some government services and offices were closed as a precautionary measure.

Schools were closed in parts of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, and airports in Fredericton and Halifax were showing cancellations.

“Stay off the roads to allow snow clearance operations to be undertaken efficiently and so we can keep people safe,” said Irvine.

Environment Canada warned residents along Nova Scotia’s coastline to stay away from the water and prepare for potentially damaging storm surges.

Irvine said the biggest potential for storm surge was along the province’s South Shore and along the Northumberland Strait in the northeast, where the surge was expected to coincide with high tide in the evening.

“The icing conditions up there do make it a bit unpredictable as to what the impacts will be, whether there will be ice pushed ashore that could complicate issues,” he said.

Barb Baillie, executive director of maintenance and operations with Nova Scotia’s Transportation Department, said about 450 pieces of equipment would be used across the province to keep roads and highways clear.

Salt trucks and plows would work around the clock in two, 12-hour shifts Baillie said.

She said with the high winds, transportation crews would be taking extra precautions in areas like the Cobequid Pass on the way to New Brunswick and the Canso Causeway, which links the mainland to Cape Breton.

“They are typically areas that are affected by the high winds and we may have to close the roads, but that’s premature at this time,” said Baillie.

Halifax transit to suspend its bus service late Wednesday morning.

Prince Edward Island’s Office of Public Safety advised residents to prepare for the possibility of power disruptions, while the provincial government closed all civil service offices for the day.

]]>HALIFAX – Atlantic Canada is bracing for a spring storm that could dump more than a foot of snow, bring wind gusts of more than 100 kilometres per hour and storm surges that could damage docks and coastal properties.

Environment Canada forecaster Tracey Talbot said the storm will begin early Wednesday morning in southern Nova Scotia and track across the region through the day.

Talbot said the possibility of damage is real because a storm surge will bring rising waters along the coastlines of Nova Scotia — in some cases 50 to 80 centimetres higher than normal, with strong waves driving the sea into shore.

“That is definitely something we have to keep an eye on, especially if it coincides with high tides,” Talbot said Tuesday.

“With the storm surge we’re expecting, we could see some flooding and some local infrastructure damage.”

Nova Scotia Premier Stephen MacNeil urged people to prepare.

“Look after your neighbours,” he said. “If there are people in your community … that are living alone or are elderly or needing some support, make sure you keep in touch with them to ensure that everyone weathers the storm.”

Up to 40 centimetres of snow is expected to fall in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and southern New Brunswick, she said.

Prince Edward Island is expected to see particularly powerful gusts, with winds expected to reach 110 km/hr. The province’s Office of Public Safety is advising Islanders to prepare for the possibility of power disruptions.

“Snow and ice buildup on tree branches, rooftops and utility lines can lead to dangerous conditions with breaking branches, downed utility lines and possibly power outages,” the office said in a news release.

The storm is expected to continue in the late afternoon and early evening into southern Newfoundland, where winds will also be intense but less snow is forecast.

Gordon Hayward, the manager of winter operations for Halifax, said the storm will likely take the city over its $20 million annual budget for snow removal.

Hayward said it’s not uncommon for snow removal crews to be out clearing the streets late in March, but he doesn’t recall similar forecasts of such snow accumulation and wind speeds this time of year.

“Getting up to 40 to 50 centimetres of snow would be very unusual,” he said.

“If you don’t have to be out there, stay off the road. It’s not going to be fun, it’s not going to be pretty.”

Neera Ritcey, spokeswoman for Nova Scotia Power, said the utility is watching for a combination of heavy, wet snow and wind and is deploying repair crews around the province.

]]>HALIFAX – A blizzard swept across parts of Atlantic Canada on Wednesday, closing schools and government offices as well as disrupting travel throughout the region.

Flights were delayed or cancelled, universities and colleges shut down and recreational programs postponed as crews worked to clear roads in blinding conditions.

“It’s absolutely horrible,” said Shelby Smith, a McDonald’s restaurant employee in downtown Halifax who was among many workers sent home early.

As gusts howled and a sudden blast of icy shards caught her off-guard, her assessment was succinct.

“It’s the wind, that’s the worst,” she said.

Just up the street, which climbs at a fairly steep pitch next to Halifax’s historic Citadel Hill, a Metro Transit bus roared and snorted as its back wheels spun helplessly in the growing mire of snow and slush.

Matt Speight, originally from Saint John, N.B., wasn’t impressed.

“I’ve seen worse,” he said.

Environment Canada said there were two distinct phases to the storm, with the first bringing between three and five centimetres of snow on Tuesday night through Wednesday morning in western Nova Scotia and the Halifax area.

A second, more powerful blow hit later, dumping heavier snowfall amounts that were expected to range from 15 to 30 centimetres in Nova Scotia and 15 to 25 centimetres in southeastern New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island by late Wednesday. Similar amounts were predicted for western Newfoundland through Wednesday night.

Tracey Talbot, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said the light snow was being blown around by gusts ranging from 50 to 70 kilometres per hour.

“There’s nowhere in the clear for this,” she said.

Marine Atlantic cancelled its ferry crossings between Port aux Basques, N.L., and Sydney, N.S. due to high winds and rough sea conditions. Flights at airports in Halifax, Fredericton, Moncton, N.B., and Charlottetown were delayed or cancelled.

Shopping malls, libraries and some government services were also closed. The health board that oversees services in Cape Breton moved to emergency services only as the storm swept through and most liquor stores in Nova Scotia closed their doors at 4 p.m.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/blizzard-slams-atlantic-canada-closing-schools-disrupting-travel/feed/0Wind gusts roaring across West snap power lines, topple truckshttp://www.macleans.ca/general/wind-gusts-roaring-across-west-snap-power-lines-topple-trucks/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/wind-gusts-roaring-across-west-snap-power-lines-topple-trucks/#respondWed, 15 Jan 2014 21:59:34 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=454775Wicked winds whipping across much of Western Canada on Wednesday ripped down power lines, blew over semi-trailers, tore signs and awnings from their moorings and subjected pedestrians to a gale-force…

]]>Wicked winds whipping across much of Western Canada on Wednesday ripped down power lines, blew over semi-trailers, tore signs and awnings from their moorings and subjected pedestrians to a gale-force resistance workout.

Environment Canada issued warnings for large parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, as well as for a corner of British Columbia, about gusts reaching 90 to 100 km/h — or much higher in some areas.

Nearly 16,000 customers across northern B.C. were without power because of toppled trees and downed power lines. The hardest hit area was the South Peace River region in the province’s northeast, where speeds of 126 km/h were clocked at the Fort St. John airport Tuesday night when the windstorm swept in.

BC Hydro estimated electricity to some homes might not be restored until 11 p.m. Wednesday — more than 24 hours after it went out.

The Northern Rockies Regional Municipality opened a recreation centre in Fort Nelson, B.C., so people without power could get a hot meal and shelter.

“We have had numerous locations with gusts greater than 100 (km/h),” said Dan Kulak of Environment Canada. “This is not like a summer thunderstorm where you get gusts … (that are) very localized and very brief. We are having hours and hours at multiple locations … where winds are very strong.”

In Alberta, several RCMP detachments advised motorists that extremely high winds were making travel difficult. Drivers were advised to use caution on the Queen Elizabeth II Highway south of Edmonton. There were a number of reports of semi-trailer trucks and vans blown over, but no word of injuries.

The wind caused trouble during the morning commute in Edmonton, where a section of the light-rail transit line had to be closed because the wind was wildly whipping crossing arms at major intersections.

The Saskatoon Greater Catholic Schools division was not dismissing students over the lunch hour because of high winds and blowing debris. Parents were asked to pick up their children or drop off their lunches.

The city advised residents that it was preparing for potential service disruptions “as the force of such high winds may be destructive.” Utility and transportation crews were standing by.

A falling light standard crushed the roof of an empty car and a window was wrenched from a multi-storey building. A cellphone tower was bent in half, a roof was lifted off a building under construction and garbage bins were tossed about.

Power outages were being reported in several areas of the city as well as elsewhere.

School buses were shut down in the Biggar area, northwest of Saskatoon, due to slippery roads and gusting winds. That, after a bus with seven children slid into a ditch when the driver lost control. No one was hurt.

Crane operators were pulled from their jobs across the province. One general manager of a crane company said the maximum wind speed cranes can work in is 32 kilometres an hour.

Strong winds were also expected in Manitoba, where forecasters were predicting snow squalls and even a thunderstorm.

Natalie Hasell of Environment Canada said it was all due to the unstable air.

“We do get thunderstorms in winter time. It’s not unheard of. It’s … typically called thunder snow,” she said.

In Winnipeg, poor visibility due to blowing snow was expected to be a factor into Thursday morning. The weather was already causing delays and cancellations at the city’s international airport.

The wind did not sweep in a deep freeze. The weather was unseasonably mild with temperatures in many areas hovering around zero or climbing even higher.

Kulak said at least six temperature records fell across northern Alberta by mid-morning Wednesday. In Edmonton, the old record of 8 C set last Jan. 15 fell when the mercury hit 9 C early in the morning.

A significant low-pressure system moving down from the Mackenzie Valley in the Northwest Territories was to blame for that, explained Kulak.

“(The low) is pulling a lot of warm Pacific air across southern Alberta and … we’ve had a number of temperature records for the day fall before the sun even came up,” he said.

This image captured by NOAA's GOES-East satellite on Jan. 6, 2014, at 11:01 a.m. EST shows a frontal system that is draped from north to south along the U.S. East Coast. Behind the front lies the clearer skies bitter cold air associated with the polar vortex. (AP Photo/NASA)

“You can’t get too much winter in the winter,” wrote the aptly named Robert Frost in his poem Snow. Canadians might beg to differ.

The winter of 2013-14 is so far proving to be the frostiest in recent Canadian memory. With the exceptions of Calgary and the West Coast of British Columbia, the entire country has experienced a vicious spate of blustery, snowy and damned cold weather unrivalled since the mid-1990s. And nothing gets Canadians talking like a polar vortex.

Parts of Alberta and the entire province of Saskatchewan were under an Environment Canada wind-chill warning earlier this week. Winnipeg has endured its second-coldest December since 1893, prompting a local museum to announce (not entirely accurately) that it was colder in Winnipeg than on the surface of Mars.

Urban central Canada has suffered its own uncharacteristic wallop of winter weather. An ice storm in southern Ontario downed countless trees, cut power to hundreds of thousands of residents and froze transportation networks. That was followed a week later by another brutal cold snap. Maritime provinces were hit with freezing rain and winds gusting up to 130 km/hour earlier this week. In Newfoundland, blizzards, yet more freezing rain and a fire at a transformer station left 190,000 residents without power over the weekend and necessitated a series of rolling blackouts. Schools, from elementary to post-secondary, have been closed in the province for most of the week to conserve power.

Suffering through the steely grasp of winter is certainly nothing new for Canadians. And complaining about it is perfectly natural, though that should not mask the fact that we are actually getting better and better at dealing with it.

Cold weather is much less a mortal threat than it once was. “There were many more deaths from cold weather in the 1920s or 1930s,” says David Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment Canada and a popular weather historian. (In 1934, it was so cold, Lake Ontario froze solid.) “Farmers would get caught between the barn and the house and freeze to death. If you read the newspapers from that era, you’ll see the weekly winter death toll was simply an accepted fact of life.”

Longer and more accurate forecasts, new methods of disseminating weather information and a host of new warnings have greatly improved our ability to predict and prepare for winter weather and, where necessary, find refuge, notes Phillips. Warming stations and homeless shelters are now an expected municipal response to the physical dangers of cold weather.

A combination of experience and improved technology means we’re also getting better at dealing with the practical aspects of snow and ice. Prairie farmers have learned to boost feed for their livestock as the temperature plummets—an extra pound of grain for every 5° the thermometer drops below -20° C. Fuel injectors have eliminated that once-familiar problem of frozen carburetors in cars. And winter outerwear is simply much better than it once was.

Some aspects of modern life, such as airports and electricity grids, can never be entirely protected from winter’s curse. But a lot has been done to improve the odds. De-icing planes is far more efficient than it once was, for instance. To avoid the domino effect that brought down more than 130 transmission towers across Quebec during the ice storm of 1998, Hydro-Québec now strengthens every 10th tower to prevent mass toppling. And street-level utility poles, of which 30,000 fell in 1998, are now designed so that ice buildup brings down conductors and wires instead of the poles themselves, making it easier to get power back up and running.

All this progress may come at a hidden cost, however. Governments, it seems, are now expected to do more and more to shelter residents from winter’s hardships. This week, for example, Ontario handed out $100 grocery gift cards and food baskets to select families who lost food when their fridges and freezers went dark. And there were calls in Toronto for the Army to help pick up broken tree branches.

No government or institution will ever be able to eliminate fully the inconvenience winter throws our way, nor should they be expected to. Let’s not forget that the ability to survive winter has always been one of the defining characteristics of a Canadian. Even if this proves to be the coldest winter in 20 years, we’ve seen much worse, and lived to tell the tale.

Massive storms that have lashed swaths of the United Kingdom have left houses flooded and produced colossal waves, inspiring awe from international eyes and thrill-seeking tourists alike. And yet in the little town of Porthcawl, one of the most famous wave-crashing locations on the coast of the Bristol Channel, the mentality is curiously calm.

“The waves actually came up over the top (of the cliffs) yesterday—I was walking the dog, and the waves actually came up onto the green,” said Arthur Burgess, a former engineer who fell in love with the area 40 years ago and is now the owner of the local pet shop. Locals say that while the waves rarely get this big, a confluence of the tides and the winds means they endure spectacular surf every couple of weeks.

Sean Warrington, the recently named harbourmaster for the area, already sounds hardened to the realities of the waves that, to the rest of the world, appear nearly unfathomable. “The local community is used to it,” he says. “I knew the reputation of the area when I came here, so it’s just one of those things. These are extremes, obviously, but it’s just taken everyone by surprise right now, the vast content of the weather at the moment.”

Still, the waves do batter the fragile coast—and have claimed lives before. Burgess recalls one particular storm a decade ago that he compared to being “like a tsunami.”

“We had a young lad, a young schoolboy, and he was lying on the rocks by the lighthouse. He was playing tag with the waves—he would lie down and let the waves crash over him,” Burgess said. “Unfortunately, the waves took him in, and they found him on the beach, seven days later.”

Typically, Warrington says, the Coast Guard will close down areas to prevent such tragedies, but, he added simply, “We obviously can’t protect everyone.”

]]>ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Thousands of people in Newfoundland continue to be without power as the island enters its fourth day of rolling blackouts to conserve energy and crews work to restore electricity.

All schools throughout the island, including Memorial University and the College of the North Atlantic, have been shut down until Wednesday as a result of the power shortages.

Michele Coughlan, a spokeswoman with Newfoundland Power, said about 30,000 customers were without electricity as of 8:30 a.m. local time today after a power plant went offline in the latest energy problem to hit the province in recent days.

An official with Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro says there was a flash in the switch yard at the Holyrood plant Sunday, but there was no issue with the plant or the generating units, and no one was injured.

Crews were trying to determine what caused the problem at the plant, located about 50 kilometres southwest of St. John’s.

On Saturday, a fire broke out at terminal station after a transformer malfunction, causing further power interruptions.

The malfunction, the cause of which is not yet known, came after rotating blackouts were implemented Thursday as utilities struggled with increased demand because of cold temperatures.

At the peak of the outages Saturday morning, about 190,000 customers were without power.

]]>MONTREAL – A powerful mix of snow, ice pellets and freezing rain was descending on Eastern Canada on Saturday, causing flight delays and highway accidents on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.

Environment Canada issued weather warnings for an area stretching from southern Ontario to Prince Edward Island.

Already, difficult conditions may have played a role in three deaths in three separate highway accidents in Quebec on Saturday, along with a fourth in Ontario.

Freezing rain began falling in the early hours of Saturday morning in parts of Quebec and Ontario, with more forecast to arrive by late evening.

The conditions caused dozens of cancellations and delays through midnight Saturday at Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport and Toronto’s Pearson International and Billy Bishop airports.

Katarina Komesarovic, from London, Ont., was trying to stay optimistic that her Saturday night flight from Toronto to Timmins in northeastern Ontario wouldn’t be cancelled, and throw a wrench into her Christmas plans.

“It would be the first year that I have not returned in the nine years that I’ve been away from home, so it would be a big deal — especially for my parents. But I’m hoping… that we do make the flight tonight and I will be able to see them for the holidays,” she said Saturday afternoon as she was boarding a shuttle bus for Bishop.

But forecasters predicted the worst was yet to come.

Environment Canada said a “major ice storm” was expected across a large swath of southern Ontario late Saturday as part of a “potent” system from the southern United States.

Talk of a heavy dose of freezing rain even had some people on social media recalling the infamous ice storm of 1998, though meteorologists said this weekend’s system was unlikely to compare.

In that earlier storm, parts of Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes were battered by three successive waves of freezing rain without interruption, leaving millions without power — in some cases for more than a month.

This time around, the forecast was for two waves of freezing rain with a break in between, the first hitting eastern Ontario and southern Quebec early Saturday morning, said Mitch Meredith, a meteorologist with Environment Canada.

Even if the current storm doesn’t stack up to the 1998 version, Meredith said it should be taken seriously.

He said it will gradually make its way eastward, causing flight delays and poor driving conditions through Sunday.

“We’re thinking that things could get a little worse tonight as the cold air is entrenched,” he said.

“Slowly as the ice builds up the impact will increase.”

Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said the carrier is doing what it can to minimize any disruptions.

“Our aim is to carry as many customers as we can and operate as many flights as conditions permit, and for those whose flights are cancelled we are looking for capacity, including by adding flights when possible,” he said in an email.

The airline is advising passengers check their flight status before heading to the airport, and check in online to speed things up.

The weekend before Christmas is traditionally one of the busiest for travelling in Canada.

Among the trouble spots Saturday afternoon was Kingston and other nearby communities in eastern Ontario, where tree branches became encased in ice and city streets were made slick from freezing rain the night before.

With the street in front of his home transformed by ice, Kingston resident Derek Ochej turned the roadway hazard into a “stereotypically Canadian” moment by lacing up his skates and going for a spin.

“It wasn’t too bad. I’ve played on worse rinks before,” Ochej said, with his Saturday morning jaunt captured on video and shared online by his wife.

“An ice storm like this can be a little scary, a little dangerous, but I figured we can have some fun with it too.”

An additional 30 mm of freezing rain could fall on southern Ontario, while parts of the province may see snow and ice pellets totalling up to 15 cm.

Roughly 28,000 customers were without power in southern Ontario with the biggest concentrations in the Kingston-area and the Greater Toronto Area, according to Ontario’s Hydro One.

Utility spokeswoman Marylena Stea said crews will be on stand-by all weekend.

“We were anticipating some major weather this weekend, and it’s starting to hit in a lot of areas in the province,” she said.

In the Montreal area, a total of 15 to 30 cm of snow mixed with ice pellets was expected, with between 15 and 40 mm of freezing rain forecast in several areas south of the St. Lawrence River.

Further east, extended periods of freezing rain were expected Saturday evening and persist until late Sunday in New Brunswick and P.E.I.

Andy Firth, an Environment Canada meteorologist for the Maritimes, said the freezing rain was expected to change to snow overnight in central New Brunswick and P.E.I., with up to 25 centimetres in the forecast.

Up to 40 mm of freezing rain and rain was predicted over southwestern and central parts of Nova Scotia, beginning overnight and lasting more than 12 hours, Firth said.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/snow-ice-pellets-and-freezing-rain-headed-to-eastern-canada-this-weekend/feed/5Winter forecast: Wild swings with ‘distinct personality’http://www.macleans.ca/general/winter-forecast-wild-swings-with-distinct-personality/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/winter-forecast-wild-swings-with-distinct-personality/#commentsTue, 26 Nov 2013 11:16:30 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=443961TORONTO – Canadians are being warned to expect wild swings in the weather this winter, giving each month of the season its own “distinct personality.”
The Weather Network is forecasting…

]]>TORONTO – Canadians are being warned to expect wild swings in the weather this winter, giving each month of the season its own “distinct personality.”

The Weather Network is forecasting periods of intense storms that could leave Canadians thinking they’re heading for one of the nastiest winters in a while, followed by spells of relatively tranquil weather.

“A lot of ups and downs — that’s the real headline for the next three months,” said senior meteorologist Chris Scott.

“We think that like how much of November has gone with these wild swings in temperature, from mild to cold to mild again, that we’ll keep that trend,” he said.

Scott said the predicted twists and turns will stem from there being no El Nino or La Nina in the tropical Pacific to send “strong signals” and drive North American weather patterns.

“This year we don’t have either. We have what we affectionately dub ‘La Nada’ — which is ‘the nothing.'”

“That’s a big part of our reasoning why there’s going to be a lot of extremes and how each month of the winter may have a very distinct personality — because of a fight that’s going on between the milder air from the south and the classic cold arctic air from the north,” he added.

The country is likely heading into a “highly variable and changeable winter,” Scott said.

The Atlantic region will be “fairly stormy” but is on track for fewer Nor’easters than usual, with temperatures and snowfall at or near normal levels, Scott said in his forecast.

He predicts Ontario and Quebec will also see temperatures balance out at close to normal levels, but the next three months will be marked by a “see-saw” of Arctic air and more moderate temperatures, as have been seen in recent weeks.

And he said that while the Prairies have gotten a “quick start” to winter with recent storms, over the course of the season conditions will see temperatures in line with the norm, while conditions in the North will also skew close to normal.

The “La Nada” weather pattern should leave much of British Columbia at or below its usual levels of precipitation, Scott said.

“As a result we don’t think there’ll be quite as many ‘Pineapple Expresses’ that come through. We’ll still get our share of rain but we may not see quite as much as we usually do.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/winter-forecast-wild-swings-with-distinct-personality/feed/2Edmonton reaches high of 30.3 C — a record for Sept. 12.http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/edmonton-reaches-high-of-30-3-c-a-record-for-sept-12/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/edmonton-reaches-high-of-30-3-c-a-record-for-sept-12/#commentsFri, 13 Sep 2013 02:01:01 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=422174EDMONTON – The City of Edmonton has reached a high of 30.3 C, a record for Sept. 12.
The previous record temperature was 29.4 C, set back in 1944.
Around…

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/edmonton-reaches-high-of-30-3-c-a-record-for-sept-12/feed/2No rain in Vancouver and Victoria as driest-ever records set around B.C.http://www.macleans.ca/news/no-rain-in-vancouver-and-victoria-as-driest-ever-records-set-around-b-c/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/no-rain-in-vancouver-and-victoria-as-driest-ever-records-set-around-b-c/#respondThu, 01 Aug 2013 16:13:05 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=410174VANCOUVER – Environment Canada confirms not a drop of rain fell over Vancouver and Victoria during July.
Vancouver recorded 411 hours of sunshine for the month — the first time…

]]>VANCOUVER – Environment Canada confirms not a drop of rain fell over Vancouver and Victoria during July.

Vancouver recorded 411 hours of sunshine for the month — the first time the city has been precipitation-free since 1937 when tracking began on rainfall statistics.

Environment Canada meteorologist Doug Lundquist says the previous sunniest July occurred in 1985 when Vancouver basked in 388 hours of sun and recorded only a trace of rain.

Several other B.C. cities set records for the driest July, with Vernon recording just 1.1 mm of rain to break a mark set in 2003, Revelstoke saw just 6.2 mm, eclipsing a 1922 record, and just .6 mm fell in Kamloops washing out the old record of 1.3 mm, set in 1970.

Vancouver just squeaked into the record books, because rain began falling at the measuring station at Vancouver International Airport early on Aug. 1, barely an hour after the precipitation-free record was claimed.

Lundquist says a new system is bringing unsettled weather to Southern B.C. in time for the B.C. Day long weekend and he warns it will pack thunder and lightning, especially through the Interior, but very little rain, raising the potential for forest fires in the province’s parched woodlands.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/news/no-rain-in-vancouver-and-victoria-as-driest-ever-records-set-around-b-c/feed/0Summer forecast 2013: Topsy turvy, then typicalhttp://www.macleans.ca/general/summer-forecast-2013-topsy-turvy-then-typical/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/summer-forecast-2013-topsy-turvy-then-typical/#respondTue, 04 Jun 2013 10:10:39 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=390943TORONTO – A top forecaster says Canadians will likely have to get through topsy turvy weather in June before settling into fairly typical summer conditions across much of the country.…

]]>TORONTO – A top forecaster says Canadians will likely have to get through topsy turvy weather in June before settling into fairly typical summer conditions across much of the country.

The Weather Network forecast suggests British Columbia, Alberta and from eastern Quebec to Atlantic Canada can expect the next three months to bring above normal temperatures just like last year.

But director of meteorology Chris Scott says the area from Saskatchewan to southern Ontario shouldn’t rule out more cool days than in 2012 that will space out the blasts of summer heat.

He says the weather pattern should be somewhat erratic for the rest of this month and perhaps into early July with cooler weather slipping into parts of southern Canada while the North gets some warmth.

Scott’s forecast calls for “active weather zones” in central Alberta through southern Manitoba, while southern Ontario and Quebec could also see severe storms and tornadoes.

He says the weather should be more consistent starting next month, but until then Canadians should monitor the forecasts for any surprise bouts of extreme weather before they take off on outdoor trips.

“The one hiccup is that especially to start the summer … we could see this ‘upside-down’ weather pattern at times where even the far south of Canada could see some cool conditions,” Scott said, noting Tuesday’s forecast called for warmer temperatures in Nunavut than some southern areas.

“July’s going to be a very busy month for storms, but June’s the one where you really have to watch because people aren’t as conditioned to severe weather,” he said.

“It’s a big heads-up especially for people in the Prairies that are just starting to get into severe weather season to really keep an eye to the sky and the forecast over the next few weeks.”

Scott forecasts that even in spots with more cool days than last year there will still be plenty of nice days on the way.

“There will be lots of opportunity for beach weather to go around, even in those areas where it may not be as warm as last year,” he said.

“We think conditions will be fairly favourable for people enjoying the outdoors overall.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/summer-forecast-2013-topsy-turvy-then-typical/feed/0The weather forecast for Canada this summerhttp://www.macleans.ca/general/the-weather-forecast-for-canada-this-summer/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/the-weather-forecast-for-canada-this-summer/#respondMon, 20 May 2013 11:29:08 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=385497Get ready to break out the sunscreen Canada, but don’t worry about sizzling all season.
Meteorologists at AccuWeather.com say the majority of Canadians can look forward to a more “typical”…

]]>Get ready to break out the sunscreen Canada, but don’t worry about sizzling all season.

Meteorologists at AccuWeather.com say the majority of Canadians can look forward to a more “typical” summer this year, when hot spells will be interspersed with cooler periods.

“The biggest takeaway from this forecast is it’s not going to resemble last year’s summer, which was the warmest summer on record for Canada,” Brett Anderson, lead forecaster for Canada, told The Canadian Press.

“We’re going to see much more changeable weather. Yes, we will have spells of heat, we will have spells of very dry weather but we do not expect patterns where it’s going to lock in for weeks on end of hot dry weather.”

The season is still going to rank among the top-10 warmest summers on record though, but that’s largely due to recurring warmer-than-normal temperatures in the country’s far north.

A warmer than average summer predicted for much of Atlantic Canada has turned up as one of the surprises in the forecast, said Anderson.

“This summer is going to shape up to one they’re going to like,” he said, adding that a persistent high pressure system over the region and warmer-than-normal temperatures in the waters of the North Atlantic were expected to help keep temperatures fairly high.

“There’s going to be days when it cools down, it’s not going to be super persistent, but overall I think it ends up warmer than normal.”

Residents living in Montreal through to Quebec City can also expect the mercury to rise.

The high temperatures in Quebec will be a continuation of a warm, dry spring, which has resulted in less water evaporating from the ground — a process that has a cooling effect.

Meanwhile, the weather in southern Ontario is expected to be pleasant, with hot periods broken up by what’s expected to be welcome cooler days, although some thunderstorms are expected earlier in the season.

“Overall the humidity, the temperature, is going to be fairly pleasant across much of southern Ontario this summer,” said Anderson.”

“It looks like a comfortable summer coming up in that region.”

Moving west, regions from southern Saskatchewan to southern Alberta are expected to sweat it out for much of the season.

“We’re going to see some record heat there in the month of July,” said Anderson. “Areas south of Calgary I think are going to see some spells of very hot weather, perhaps record breaking temperatures.”

Residents living in areas between Edmonton, Winnipeg and the U.S. border should brace for a higher-than-normal amount of severe thunderstorms this summer, as well as some very warm spells.

Drier conditions are expected in much of southeastern British Columbia while the most balanced temperatures are predicted for Vancouver and southwestern parts of the province.

The soggiest spots this summer are likely to be the northern Prairies and areas of northwestern Ontario particularly around Lake Superior, including Thunder Bay and Sault Ste Marie.

“Folks in that region are going to be cooler, more stormier this summer. I don’t think they’ll be too happy,” said Anderson.

Areas of the northern coast of British Columbia are also expected to get a fair amount of rainfall this summer.

Despite this predictions that this year’s summer will be less of a boiler than last season, Anderson said Canadian summers in general have been getting hotter over time.

“Overall Canadian summers are getting warmer. We’ve seen an increase of 1.4 Celsius since records began in 1948,” he said. “Canadian summers are also getting a little bit wetter…part of that reason is also the warming of the far North.”

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/the-weather-forecast-for-canada-this-summer/feed/0Weather Network forecasts return to typically unpredictable springhttp://www.macleans.ca/news/weather-network-forecasts-return-to-typically-unpredictable-spring/
http://www.macleans.ca/news/weather-network-forecasts-return-to-typically-unpredictable-spring/#respondTue, 05 Mar 2013 16:13:42 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=357005TORONTO – One of the country’s prominent forecasters says Canadians waiting to feel some spring in their step will have to be patient.
The Weather Network says the average winter…

]]>TORONTO – One of the country’s prominent forecasters says Canadians waiting to feel some spring in their step will have to be patient.

The Weather Network says the average winter conditions experienced across the country will give way to a typical unpredictable spring in the coming weeks.

Director of Meteorology Chris Scott says spring temperatures are expected to hover near seasonal norms in most parts of the country.

He says residents of southern Ontario, Quebec and parts of Atlantic Canada may feel a little more warmth than their counterparts in the west.

Scott says stable ocean temperatures in the Pacific also suggest average levels of precipitation for most of the country.

He says this year’s forecast stands in stark contrast to the previous spring, when several of Canada’s major cities recorded historic highs.

“You can think of it as a continuation of what we’ve seen over the course of the winter,” Scott said in a telephone interview.

“It’s spring, so of course you always get those false starts where you get a few nice days then it goes back, but it’s going to be much more of a typical type of spring this year as opposed to what we saw last year.”

Last March represented a particularly sharp deviation from the norm, he said, citing figures showing Toronto experienced 12 days during the month when the temperature soared above 15 degrees Celsius.

This past winter marked a return to Canadian form, he said, adding substantial snowfalls and brisk temperatures have defined the season throughout much of the country.

That trend is expected to continue in March, he said, noting the month is notorious for its unpredictability and wild fluctuations are almost to be expected.

Precipitation is one area where Scott called for some stability. Water temperature fluctuations in the Pacific Ocean often dictate the amount of rain or snow that will fall over the country, he said.

Those temperatures are right within the normal range this year, he said, adding some exceptions are forecasted in the western provinces. Residents of central British Columbia can expect a cooler, drier start to the season, while prairie-dwellers may see slightly more precipitation than usual.

Scott said Atlantic Canada can expect a respite from the unusually stormy weather that’s swept through the region over the winter. The handful of active systems that do make themselves felt won’t deviate too sharply from the seasonal norm, he predicted.

Scott said Canadians struggling to adjust to the return of traditional winter weather may be disappointed by the spring outlook, but offered reassurances that warm weather will return.

“There’s a lot of good news in this forecast, we don’t want to tell people it’s a horrible spring, it’s just not going to be anything like last year.”

]]>TORONTO – The Weather Network’s top forecaster is advising Canadians to keep their winter mitts close and snow shovels even closer as he expects much of the country is in for a harsher blast of winter than it was dealt last year.

“We’ll get more winter this year than we did last year,” said director of meteorology Chris Scott.

And that means a return to more “typical” historic conditions of cold and snow gripping much of the country, he said.

“If you think back on Christmas Day (2011) there were many major cities in the country that didn’t have a lot of snow on the ground — and that was the theme for the winter.”

“The way things are shaping up right now we think there’ll be more cold air to work with and as a result we think that some of these storm systems that track through will dump a bit more snow than they did last year,” Scott said.

Scott and the network’s team of meteorologists are predicting that most of Atlantic Canada will see higher temperatures and more snow than usual, while the northern Prairies, Northwest Territories and western parts of Nunavut will dip below their 30-year temperature average.

The Great Lakes region and Gulf of St. Lawrence should also get more of the white stuff, he said.

But for the rest of the country, he said precipitation and temperatures should, for the most part, remain within historic norms — a return to reality after last year`s relatively mild winter.

Scott is forecasting some fluctuations where a sudden influx of warm air from the south is quickly replaced by much colder air from the north, setting the stage for more storms and snow levels matching the long-term average.

“This year you may not been in the deep freeze all the time but it does look like there will be more cold air to play with,” he said.

“If it’s cold and you’ve got moisture, you’ve got snow — that’s what we expect as a typical Canadian winter. And at least compared to last year we’ve got more of that, it looks like, on the way.”

Scott said the forecast is a “sketch” of what is likely in store for the next three months, cautioning that it’s only a cumulative average — leaving the door open for isolated weather events.

“We do think there will be extremes this winter. We will see these periods where we go from warm to cold pretty quickly.”

He said much of the methodology underpinning the network’s winter forecast stems from the presence of La Nina or El Nino systems in the tropical Pacific Ocean — which are predictable several months in advance.

Scott said that since neither of those systems are expected be particularly strong this winter season, more Arctic air is likely to move in and cool things down.

He said that climate change is “shifting the range” of weather, noting that many winters in the last decade have been warmer than the historical norms.

But that doesn’t mean less snow and higher temperatures every winter, Scott said.

“It doesn’t mean that we can’t get cold winters… if you were to project 30 to 40 years in the future, we could still get some pretty harsh winters.”

“It’s just that the odds are going to tilt towards milder winters,” he said.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/seasonal-forecast-more-winter-than-last-year/feed/0Anticipation, not denial, is the first step of winterhttp://www.macleans.ca/scott-feschuk/anticipation-not-denial-is-the-first-step/
http://www.macleans.ca/scott-feschuk/anticipation-not-denial-is-the-first-step/#commentsFri, 16 Nov 2012 15:26:01 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=314735It’s followed by despair, sarcasm, and eventually, a lot more despair

It’s that difficult time of year again, but come on people, we can get through this together. To better navigate our ordeal, it’s important that we take the time to review the challenge ahead. Here are the seven stages of Canadian winter:

1. Anticipation. As the long, hot summer surrenders to the first hint of an autumn breeze, many of us experience a small thrill: winter is on its way, bringing relief from the heat and promising the many splendours that accompany the most Canadian of seasons. We envision snow-flecked landscapes, ice-covered ponds and joyful Christmas choirs. Digging deep into the closet, we gaze fondly upon our parkas and mitts. We dream of frosty adventures ahead.

2. Despair. The first cruel winds of November cut through us and we pretty much want to fall down and die right there. Three days of hostile muttering ensue.

3. Sarcasm. A huge December snowfall—awesome! And maybe a little freezing rain in there because THAT WOULD BE PLEASANT. Wake up and there’s a metre of snow in the driveway—and hey, great, it’s the wet, slushy kind that weighs about a squillion pounds per shovelful and lays those of weak heart in their graves. Yay winter! Just when we finally get it cleared—literally, just as we finish clearing it away—the plow pushes a huge drift back in front of the driveway. Thanks for that, buddy! And for the record, that could have been anyone’s snow shovel that flew through the air and struck the window of the plow’s cab. We only ran away because we were in the mood for some exercise.

4. Rationalization. Typically this stage is triggered by an enjoyable day spent outdoors. We are imbued with the belief that not only can we survive winter, we can learn to love it. We vow to plan more outings. We settle in for hot chocolate by the fireplace. We look out the window into the deep black of a winter’s night and we are content . . .

5. Swearing. . . . until we realize it’s only 4:35 p.m. Sweet mother of @!%*#. It’s pitch black when we go to work! It’s pitch black when we come home from work! There’s more daylight in Das Boot. HUMANS WEREN’T MEANT TO LIVE LIKE THIS, BY GOD! Our stylish leather boots are salt-stained. The legs of our pants are salt-stained. Our will to live is salt-stained, and that’s not even possible. At work, the guy two cubicles over is wearing the same wool sweater for the third time this week. It smells like a wet ferret. And now we smell like a wet ferret. Morning comes and the ice on our windshield is thick, so thick, and we take our scraper and we just hammer on it and hammer on it until we crumble to the driveway, spent and weeping. Later, at Starbucks, we overhear some cheerful idiot saying the Inuit have dozens of ways of saying “snow.” We tell him we’ve got hundreds of ways of saying, “Shut the $@*# up.” The ensuing conversation with management centres on whether we’re banned from all Starbucks or just this one.

6. Despair. It’s late February. The snowshoes we got for Christmas are still in their box. Communication among family members has devolved to a series of grunts, crude drawings and middle fingers. In this dark moment, a decision is made. The next person who comes up to us and says, “Cold enough for ya?”—we are going to murder that person. Not secretly. Not with any foresight or planning. We are going to reach out with our bare hands and we are going to strangle the life out of that person right then and there, and if anyone tries to get in our way then we are going to murder them as well because we just. Can’t. Take it. Anymore.

7. Despair. The neighbours are back from their March break trip to Florida. They’re all tanned and perky, and they sure seem eager to come over and tell us all about it—right up until they spot the barbed wire and land mines. They back away slowly. Spring is coming. It must be coming. But the nights still are long, and in our dreams we hear only the swish-swush snowsuit sound of the longest of the seasons.

1. Frankenstorm, a.k.a. Hurricane Sandy, has shut down much of New York City and is prompting warnings from Environment Canada for eastern Canada. Ontarians can expect wind gusts of up to 90 km/h and maybe as strong as 100 km/h in the southwestern part of the province near Sarnia and Niagara. Universities are open—for now. Pay attention to your university’s website for updates.

2. The other potential disaster this weekend was a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in British Columbia that triggered tsunami alerts as far away as Hawaii. It didn’t end up doing much damage, but British Columbians are angry that their official warning came 42 minutes after the U.S. warning.

3. The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has thrown out the complaint of a former Carleton University student who alleged that his masculinities professor was racist and sexist toward men. Angry e-mails were exchanged and the situation escalated to the point that the student was told by the university to stop attending his class. I have only one question—what’s a masculinities professor?

4. Also at Carleton, 8,258 students voted in a referendum on whether to have a fall reading break. About 70 per cent of students voted yes, reports The Charlatan. I’m surprised it wasn’t more.

5. A brawl broke out at Pho Xe Lua, a restaurant in Toronto’s Chinatown, on Saturday around 3 a.m. A video of the fight is spreading quickly on Facebook. At one point, a man in a SWAT uniform looks like he’s going to break up the fight. Instead, he sends a plate flying at someone’s head.

6. Nearly 100 Canada National Research Council employees may be laid off. Union president Gary Corbett warned that sacking the scientists and researchers means that, “future NRC activities will be dictated by market demands and by what can be commercialized.”

7. The Dalhousie Women’s Centre (DWC) is changing its name to the South House Gender and Sexual Resource Centre. It’s an effort to be more inclusive. The DWC is known for the annual Take Back the Night march, Consent Fest, and an erotica reading group, reports the Dalhousie Gazette.

8. It’s flu shot season and students are considering whether to get the jab, just as some forms of the vaccine are being recalled due to clumps of viruses. Meanwhile, the Canadian Medical Association Journal says doctors and nurses shouldn’t even get a choice; they want it to be mandatory.

9. Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall is planning to join Movember, a fundraiser in which men grow mustaches to raise funds for prostate cancer research and men’s mental health. It’s unclear if western Canada’s other two premiers, Alison Redford and Christy Clark, will follow his lead.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/education/uniandcollege/what-students-are-talking-about-today-october-29th-edition/feed/0INTERACTIVE: A weather forecast for the world economyhttp://www.macleans.ca/economy/business/interactive-a-weather-forecast-of-the-world-economy/
http://www.macleans.ca/economy/business/interactive-a-weather-forecast-of-the-world-economy/#commentsFri, 13 Jul 2012 14:51:31 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=273893It's mostly storm clouds, but there are still a few sunny spots

]]>The global economy is in dire straits. Fiscal woes and persistently high unemployment are hampering the recovery in the developed world. Emerging economies like China and India are once again confronted with weaker demand for exports from rich countries, but they are also grappling with a host of domestic troubles. High oil and food prices aren’t helping. The IMF announced last week it is planning to revise down its global growth forecast for the rest of 2012, and one famed economist warned of a “perfect storm” threatening the world economy. Use the interactive chart below to see which countries and regions face the worst turbulence, and who’s still enjoying sunny skies.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/economy/business/interactive-a-weather-forecast-of-the-world-economy/feed/5Forecast calls for more of same — only hotterhttp://www.macleans.ca/general/forecast-calls-for-more-of-same-only-hotter/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/forecast-calls-for-more-of-same-only-hotter/#commentsThu, 21 Jun 2012 11:30:05 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=269248Dave Phillips is just as reliable as a heat wave in summer.
The senior climatologist at Environment Canada is the nation’s go-to guy when it comes to talking about the…

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/general/forecast-calls-for-more-of-same-only-hotter/feed/2Green Christmashttp://www.macleans.ca/general/green-christmas/
http://www.macleans.ca/general/green-christmas/#commentsThu, 22 Dec 2011 17:20:38 +0000http://www2.macleans.ca/?p=230876A record number of Canadians will go without snow this holiday

]]>The number of Canadians going without snow on Christmas will be at its highest since Environment Canada began recording holiday accumulation in 1955, The Globe and Mail reports. While 85 per cent of the country will be snow-covered on Dec. 25, populated regions including several big cities will go without. Meteorologists predict snowfall for the 25 in most of the North, including the territories and northern B.C., Ontario, and Quebec, but some areas that are typically known for getting the most snow, like Winnipeg, will see green instead. Average December temperatures have jumped six or seven degrees above average across the country this year. What little snow has fallen on most southern areas has been washed away by rain. With little chance of snowstorms on the days before Christmas, shoppers will be out in full force, but likely not looking for heavy-duty winter apparel.

]]>A blistering heat wave struck much of the country this weekend, keeping in line with predictions Canadians would see above-normal temperatures this summer. The mercury rose in Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, but the Atlantic provinces and British Columbia were left in the relative cold. Officials issued a heat and humidity warning in Montreal after temperatures hit 32 C on Sunday, while Environment Canada recorded a record-breaking high of 34.6 C at Pearson International Airport on Sunday afternoon. Manitoba and Saskatchewan are both expected to see highs in the 30s this week.